My Buddy
by WonderlandInvader
Summary: Syndrome receives a visitor in prison after surviving the jet turbine, but it doesn't go how he expected.


In all honesty, she didn't know why she was there. She really shouldn't be giving him the time of day, after all that he's done, but there's that nagging feeling that she needs to visit him just once. Just one time, and that's it. He _**had **_been her best friend growing up after all.

_**Had **_been. Was. Used to be. Not anymore.

Krista sighed as she sat in her car, debating whether or not she should even get out. The prison loomed ahead of her, all barbed wire and foreboding, and inside those grey walls sat a person who had once been the boy next door to her, Buddy Pine.

_**Syndrome**_, as he was now known.

She pictured his bright orange hair, once close-cut, now towering over his head, and his crystalline blue eyes that were bordered by an army of freckles. She remembered his crooked teeth and the Incrediboy costume that his mom had sewn for him when he was seven, replaced by a uniform only a few shades darker than his hair. Krista remembered who he was, and tried to come to terms with what he was now.

A _**killer**_. A genius inventor. A _**super villain**_.

"Well," she told herself, "it's now or never." Adjusting her glasses, she smoothed her sandy brown hair down before stepping out into the blustery winter afternoon. Her heels clacked noisily against the pavement as she walked. Why had she bothered getting dressed up? She wasn't trying to impress anyone here. She shrugged it off and kept walking.

The guards showed her in to the visitation room, casting her sidelong glances after she informed them of who she wished to see. No one else, not even the psycho fangirls that had swarmed his trial, had come to see him since he was convicted of countless hero murders and a number of other crimes, so they felt that it was their sworn duty to judge the young woman who _**had**_ decided to pay him a visit. Krista didn't care.

Syndrome was buzzed in and sat down across from her, his ridiculous hairstyle a thing of the past. It had grown out some since it had been cut though, so he thought he looked decent enough; he'd never liked having really short hair. She saw that his freckles were still in place, despite the scars he'd received from his meeting with the jet turbine, and his eyes were still blue, but rather than a cheerful sky color, they had turned to ice.

Like his heart. What was left of it anyway.

The two of them sat in harsh silence before he decided to pick up the phone on his side of the glass, "Hey Krissy. Long time no see." He grinned smugly, his mouth distorted on one side.

His crooked smile was not returned, but met with pale green eyes like steel daggers. She wanted to cuss him for all he was worth, but then again, how much is a homicidal maniac worth? "Hello Buddy. Or should I call you _**Syndrome**_? 'Cause I'm not sure that that's _**my**_ Buddy in the orange jumpsuit." Her voice cut deep, and it showed on his twisted face. It stung to hear that from her.

His tough façade got dropped like a bad habit, and was quickly replaced with a piteous frown, "I'm sorry Krista." He whimpered, slumping down in his seat.

"What are you apologizing to _**me**_ for? From what I heard you have like forty-seven letters you need to be writing to people. You didn't kill _**my**_ dad or my sister or my best friend…or _**did**_ you?" she snarled, "This…_**'Syndrome'**_…isn't my best friend. He's a _**disease**_ that took _**my**_ Buddy away from me." Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but she wouldn't allow him to see them. Krista was too proud for that.

"I'm afraid not." He spat back, "We're one and the same Krissy. Always have been." Buddy's jaw clenched tightly, his hand nearly crushed the flimsy old phone. She fought the tears harder.

"Oh _**really**_?" her voice dropped drastically to hide the catch in her breath, hardly above a whisper, "Would _**Syndrome**_have walked me home from school every day from kindergarten to sixth grade? Would _**he**_push me in the swings at the park because I was too short to reach the ground?" despite all her best efforts, one single drop of salty remorse escaped from her left eye and fell to the counter, "Would _**he**_let me wear his cape when I was afraid to go to the doctor, or use it to wipe blood off my leg when I fell off my bike and scraped my knee?"

Syndrome stared blankly at her, unable to form a retort for once in his life. He wanted to say "_Of course I would! That's all stuff that I did!_" but at the same time, he knew that she would turn that around on him somehow. She thought that he had changed on her, that he'd become an entirely different person in the years that he'd been away from her. He didn't see that.

Of course, he didn't see much really. Hate had blurred his vision for so long. He really needed glasses.

She sniffed, "I didn't think so. I _**knew**_you weren't him. You aren't _**my**_Buddy." She was borderline sobbing now, only holding it in so as not to alarm the warden posted at the door. Buddy wanted to reach through the glass and comfort her, but Syndrome had seen to it that that would never happen. He would never have that option ever again.

Not in _**this**_life.

"Then why did you come and see me?" he questioned, "If you knew that I wasn't _**'your**__**Buddy'**_, why even bother? You certainly don't act like you want to see Syndrome." he wished she hadn't come in, regardless of the fact that she was the only visitor he'd gotten, and would ever get. Her accusatory tone had made him feel even worse than he already did; prison wasn't exactly the most cheer-inspiring place in the world.

Now it was her turn to fall silent, with no reply on the tip of her tongue. She just stared at him through the bullet-proof barrier between them, wishing that she had an answer. More tears fell and rolled down her cheeks. In years gone past, he would've been the one to wipe them away, not the cause of them…and it pained both of them to think of that.

They _**both**_ wished they could turn back time, to stop this from happening. But they can't.

"I don't know." She finally said, "I don't guess that I should have. It hasn't done me any good, seeing you like this. Probably would've been better if I hadn't come at all…but I couldn't help it. Because unlike _**some**_ people, I don't _**abandon**_ my friends." These words shot right through his heart, through the same wound that she'd opened when she came in. What he'd done in his adolescent years –after Mr. Incredible let him down for the _**last**_ time- had been the biggest mistake of his life. He'd pushed her and his family away, obsessing over his first inventions of a destructive nature, and slowly evolving into the monster he knew he was now.

But there was no going back now. It was too late to save himself. Too late to be forgiven.

"Well I guess you'd better be going then, since you apparently don't have any _**friends**_ here. Feel free to abandon me, Krista, just like everybody else did." Buddy was holding in the tears now. He was a heartless killer, he didn't cry, _**especially**_ not in front of a girl. He was a ruthless mastermind that had been bent on taking over the city and becoming better than everyone else by process of elimination.

No, _**Syndrome**_ was. That wasn't Buddy, _**was**_ it?

Her waterworks dried up almost instantly, "Just know this, _**you**_ were the first one to bail out on yourself, _**not**_ me. You could've made so much _**more**_ of yourself, but you wasted _**all**_ your time and effort on landing yourself in _**here**_. I still had hope for you for years, but I guess _**that**_ was a waste of time too." Krista stood up angrily and slammed the phone into the receiver. Without a backwards glance or a final goodbye, she stormed out of the room and let the door bang shut behind her. The guard raised his eyebrow at Syndrome's window, then signaled the others to escort their highest security prisoner back to his solitary cell.

He didn't resist, and they didn't ask questions when he whispered, "_That's my Krissy. Always the strongest one of us._" through the tear tracks that slithered through the gashes down his face.

He never spoke again, to her or anyone else.

She moved on…eventually.


End file.
